Shattered
by Sickle Sword
Summary: Everyone has fears. Not everyone wants to confront them. What will Draco do when he has no choice? (one-shot)


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**_I tried to think for ages what I'm going to write as Writer Note. Then I stopped. There was nothing I could say. It never hapenend to me before. But there is a first time for everything. Please review . Thank you. _**

**_I don't own any of the characters from Harry Potter. Such a surprise..._**

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**SHATTERED **

Or

What Is Draco's Boggart?

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I always look at him, trying to analyze him. Especially in days like this, when he seems so far away, stranger, even to me. Even though I've known him all my life. No, we aren't friends. You can even say that we are kind of enemies. Sometimes we hate each other, sometimes we learn to coexist, but we are always, ALWAYS, there for each other when we are needed, when it matters the most.  
  
Most of the time I succeed reading him, for I have learnt to identify most of his gestures already. Yet some of them are still mystery to me. Some of them I know I will never be able to decipher, and, heavens be with me, I hope that there will be always few that I will never be able to. Every man is an enigma, every man deserves a small piece of privacy.  
Or so they've told me. So I respect that. It's not like I have other choice, anyway.

Not today, though. Today he is different. And I know what caused him to walk so bent, his eyes staring lifelessly at the wayfarers. I know that he sees everything that happens around him with the same indifference he always does, like everyone are miles away from him. I know why it is. It was the test.  
He stood there, with everyone but so lonely at the same time. He watched those he never cared for and those who didn't give a damn about him with so much apathy that I knew that the abyss that was always between him and the rest of the world, just became wider.  
He was the Prince of Slytherin. Or so they called him.  
Personally, I always assumed he was more like the princess. Locked away, waiting for salvation to come.  
After so many years, he stopped waiting. Nobody heard him screaming out loud. Not a soul heard the silence in his heart.

I can understand that. It is easier that way, having nobody hear you. Easier and harder. Because then you don't have to apologize for who you are. Even to yourself. But this is also consuming. Because no matter what you and others think about you, you are still a human being. Needing to touch and be touched, comforted and having told kind words every once in a while.  
Or even only once.  
  
I knew the look his face wore at the time, he was hiding. Denying the fact that he, just like everyone else, needs something to hang on to, something to hope for. A lighthouse.

Sometimes I can swear that the bulb in his was burnt long ago. Lost in the flames of the perdition that is waiting just for him from the moment he forgot. Others. Himself. Fate. His innocence.  
Fine, laugh. But once he was innocent as well. Once, he too, believed. He learnt in the hard way not to trust. Because it can kill you, your family and those you care for. So he learnt, he adapted. Now, he doesn't care anymore, and he learnt to compromise. Kill his own soul to save his life.

Trust me, it happened. It was painful to watch him changing so much. But I did. In a way, it is my fault as well, for only watching and not saying a thing. I know it was hard for him, even if others are blind. He feels so empty, so without meaning that it is like an acid in his veins, eating, burning him alive.  
I know all about it. I was scalded many times when he felt like that, and still stood by him. Because there isn't any other way for me.  
  
Ah, I know everything about him, even things he doesn't know about himself. I know that these times are exactly why he is respected and hated so much. That this is when he mocks and hurts the most. Secretly, I always suspected this is because he thinks that if he concentrated on the physical pain, he might forget the always bleeding wound in his chest, the place where his heart once was before he let it take a vacation for a week.  
Since then it's been years.  
His heart is still missing. Only now he doesn't miss it.  
Much.  
  
It took awhile for others to cross the challenge, but eventually his turn arrived. He stared at the monstrous room, his eyes wide and alert, ready for what will come.  
The Boggart.  
His group was instructed to come and fight it, fight themselves, with only the professor as their aid. But Draco never trusted professors. He never even trusted himself.  
But he is a Malfoy, not a Potter. He isn't a coward, and whatever life threw at him, he was ready to deal with. Or so he wants to believe.  
I know the truth. But I will never tell him that just like any other human being he has limits too. Why?  
Because if this is what letting him keep ticking, who am I to take the hope from him? No, I will never say a thing. Cowardice? Maybe.  
  
Now he was supposed to fight his greatest fear.  
Ha. I bet he doesn't even know he has one, not to mention what it is.  
I know for fact he has fears, though. Everyone has. But none of those I can think about fit.  
He fears his father's anger. But he already faced it when he refused being a Death Eater ahead of his time. And he survived this one. I didn't think he would, frankly, yet he did . . . but that's a story for another time.  
He fears Jell-O. Something in it just doesn't feel right for him. He thinks it is too. . quivering. Go figure. But he still doesn't run scared at its sight.  
He fears darkness. Maybe this is. . . . No.  
Something is telling me this is not it. I have not yet figured everything. Maybe someday I will, when he will figure me out.  
So, almost fearlessly, he stepped closer. Cockily and arrogantly. He was always that way. It is sort of defensive mechanism, if you ask me, to deflect attention. The unwanted kind. 'Never let anyone know that you're afraid' so his father told him when he was younger, hiding from the basement because he foolishly thought that this was where the demons came from. Now he knows better. They come from the inside.  
I wish I have prevented his father from poisoning his soul while I still had the chance, that I listened better and that I had done something when he started falling down the slope, telling himself lies, repeating over and over the same sentence . 'Not even to yourself'  
He lives by both rules, forgetting to fear. Fearing to fear. Because it's a weakness. It's something he has no control on.  
If there is one thing Draco hates the most is losing control.  
  
Lupin smiled to him encouragingly. Draco ignored him, as if Lupin wasn't even there, and instead of running away, he took 2 steps closer. I knew from his expression that Draco was beating himself, yet he didn't give up. I was so proud of him. Yeah, sure, I know for what he felt guilty. It is that damn pride of his. He hesitated. He let his enemy see he wasn't sure of himself. He showed him a weakness.  
Malfoys never dealt well with sympathy, honestly speaking. They saw it as a sign of weakness. I only wish I could have told him that Lupin would soon know of his weakness anyway. As soon as Draco would meet the bugart, Lupin will know of his Achilles heel.  
But I silenced. That is one of the most sacred things in our connection. He can talk to me, I can't respond, being anything other than a shadow. Someday I know I will rebel, but until then, there is much that can be said without voice.  
  
Then he took another step forward. I saw the determination in his eyes. He knows. Everybody has a weakness.  
Even the Dark Lord. His is probably Potter, or maybe HE has his own demons too, and just like an obedient Dark Lord he never told anyone about them.  
  
Breathing heavily, he looked at Lupin's kind eyes. . .too kind eyes. It was almost as if he pitied him. Angry, Draco averted his gaze to the creature that was supposed to present him his own personal hell.  
  
With a loud POP, it disappeared. Vanished. Kaput.  
  
Lupin looked at him, surprised, not understanding what just happened. But Draco understood perfectly what it was. I could see it, as always, in his eyes.  
  
I lamented for him then. Even shed a tear. Didn't think I had it in me, that useless sentiment. But after seeing his demon, I could no longer stay calm.  
So sue me.  
  
Cold sweat trickled down his brows, and from the familiar twitch of his lip, I knew he was resisting the urge to scream. If only he screamed. . . I wish he knew how liberating it is. But he never once tried. He, just like me, was brought to silence.  
He began trembling, trying feverishly to force his mind to remember the words that would disable that hateful creature. I pitied him. Not because of his fear but due to the enormous effort he made to make it invisible, as if he was not human. As if he didn't have the right to have feelings anymore.  
  
I saw Lupin struggling invisible barriers to get to him.  
I wished him to succeed, but even I knew that he can't. That this battle was already lost.  
  
Then Lupin stopped trying. Just like everyone did in the end when facing Draco. I know why he became pensive. He understood.  
  
Most of everything, Draco fears the Nothing. Being totally alone, isolated, emotionless, soulless.  
That was why he built around himself a wall of glory, of steel. That way he was unreachable, that way nobody realized that the invisible wall around him was only one earthquake away from falling apart.  
  
That way they didn't realize what he fears the most.  
  
Being himself.

And now, I see him again. He is stepping closer to me, angry. About me and himself. He is turning around, his eyes away from me, and looking for something. From the glint of his eyes, I know what it is. I have experience it many times.  
He looks for something sharp.  
  
He finds it.  
  
Knife.  
  
He's passing his cold finger on my figure, stroking me like only he can, before he turns around with haste, the knife in his hand.  
  
And in me.  
  
Without even last compassionate words, he turns away, treading mercilessly on me, my shattered silvery shreds stuck in his leg painfully.  
But he doesn't notice. He had just lost the only friend he's got.  
Me. A Mirror.

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End file.
